Messenger Charged In Pushing Death

December 20, 1999|By Evan Osnos, Tribune Staff Writer.

A Chicago bicycle messenger who police alleged killed an Elgin-area man by shoving him down a flight of stairs last week allegedly told a friend that he had a confrontation with the man a day earlier and planned to "get him," police said Sunday.

Matthew Givens, 24, a courier with Quicksilver Messenger Service, faces a charge of first-degree murder in an attack Wednesday. Police allege that Givens followed 51-year-old Keith P. Radloff for two blocks, shouting obscenities, and that he pushed Radloff down concrete steps in a Metra entrance to Union Station, 475 W. Madison St.

Givens was being held in Cook County Jail on Sunday and was scheduled to appear for a bond hearing Monday.

Investigators said Sunday that they believe Givens is the man who struck Radloff with a bicycle lock a day earlier as Radloff walked to the train station, moments after the two had collided on a nearby street.

"We have made a link between the first incident the day before and the second incident. It was definitely related," said Harrison Area Detective Division Cmdr. John Kozaritz.

While noting that at least nine witnesses identified Givens out of police lineups, police added they also have talked to a friend of Givens who said Givens told him, as Kozaritz put it, "There goes the guy I had trouble with yesterday. I'm going to get him today."

In addition, Kozaritz said, "We have a statement from the defendant indicating his participation in this crime," though he would not elaborate.

Investigators said they were uncertain of what might have prompted Radloff's attacker to strike him with the lock Tuesday. There is no evidence that the two men exchanged angry words following the collision, Kozaritz said.

Givens of the 4500 block of South Martin Luther King Drive has a record alleging several prior offenses, including a 1994 arrest in which he was charged with aggravated stalking, aggravated assault, home invasion and other offenses. He ultimately served six months in prison in connection with those charges, according to police.

Givens "maintains his innocence," according to attorney Jeffrey Granich, who said he is representing Givens.

Even as authorities announced Givens' arrest, an internal police investigation continued Sunday into allegations that officers may have failed to respond to Radloff's appeals for help after Tuesday's attack. That inquiry is expected to continue, officials said.

Police said they are indebted to scores of witnesses who came forward in recent days to re-create the troubling and bizarre scene that unfolded just after 4 p.m. Wednesday as Radloff tried to make his way to the station after encountering his attacker.

"Our victim is walking, trying to get away," Kozaritz said. "All of our witnesses say he never raised a hand, he was carrying two briefcases, he just wanted to get home. He gets to the train station, he goes to walk down the stairs, that's when the offender gets off his bike. Our victim turns around to walk down the stairs and that's when (the attacker) pushes him."

Radloff, who worked as a contract employee for a unit of Ameritech in the Loop, suffered severe head trauma in the fall and died that night at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Relatives of the victim reached by phone at their home near Elgin declined to comment on the arrest, as did Kevin Gallagher, the Indiana owner of the messenger service where Givens worked for two years.

Investigators began homing in on Givens Friday, Kozaritz said, after combing many of the city's 142 messenger services. Their break came when they asked Gallagher, who also heads the Messenger Service Association of Illinois, a courier trade group, if he had any employees who might match the witnesses' descriptions of the attacker, authorities said.

Police said they compared information from Gallagher about his employees with prior criminal histories and then matched those findings with witnesses' descriptions. They arrested Givens late Friday at Quicksilver, 330 S. Wells St. He was charged late Saturday.